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Chernobyl’s link to thyroid cancer confirmed

AT LAST, the debate is over. Radioactive iodine-131 from the Chernobyl accident in 1986 really is to blame for the hundreds of thyroid cancers among children in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Despite evidence of a 90-fold increase in rates of thyroid cancer in the most contaminated region, some scientists questioned whether radiation was the cause. They argued that the doses people received were too low to cause cancer. Now Elizabeth Cardis of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and 35 colleagues have compared 276 children with thyroid cancer with 1300 controls. They found a strong correlation …